


Creation Myth

by Cavanaughpark09



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Family, Gen, Gen Fic, Not Canon Compliant, Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cavanaughpark09/pseuds/Cavanaughpark09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighteen is very possibly the best year of Derek’s Life.  At least it starts out that way.  It’s also the worst.  And the next six years are absolute agony.</p><p>But if you pay attention, they explain a lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creation Myth

**Author's Note:**

> I always seem to start my forays into new fandoms with Gen, so I’m hoping this actually gets some reads. This is the first time I’ve actually written a longer fic in years, and the first time I’ve had something beta’d in even longer. Thank you to the wonderful @iclemeyer (twitter) who has never seen an episode of the show. 
> 
> Remaining errors are mine from last minute edits.

Eighteen is very possibly the best year of Derek’s life. At least it starts out that way. He celebrates his birthday a mere two weeks after school starts and things have already been going his way. He’d spent the summer as the third baseman of the dominating regional baseball team and Coach Harris has already named him captain for the spring season. 

His class schedule is appropriately light, with enough classes to keep his parents and college recruiters happy, but a long free period during which he’ll have time to goof off with his friends. His friends, of which he has plenty. He’s always run in those circles; there’s something charismatic about his personality that draws people in. It’s part of the pack mentality. He doesn’t require dominance, but there is certainly something in making himself stronger by surrounding himself with people. He does well in most social circles, not completely central, but getting along and pushing them to be better.

His sister Laura is only a sophomore, and Derek isn’t sure if it’s their dynamic outside of school, or the fact that she can hold her own just as well as he can, but he’s actually not embarrassed to have a younger sister who occasionally shows up at the same parties as him. She’s more cunning than he is, climbing the social ladder of high school like it’s nothing more than a gently sloping hill on their runs. She’s always been like that, wanting more. Even in just her second year she’s already heading up the student council and running just about any other activity she’s deemed important enough to grace her social calendar. It must be a girl thing.

It entertains him more than he’d care to admit.

And finally there’s Kate Argent who has just spent the summer with her aunt while she’s looking for a post-college job. Kate, who happens to be sticking around for at least a few more months, who is older and hotter and more experiences than any of Derek’s previous string of girlfriends. And who happens to want into Derek’s pants on a fairly regular basis.

It’s nothing short of amazing, and makes Derek almost forget that he’s a little different from everyone else.

“Do you ever get nervous?” Laura asks him one day when he’s giving her a ride home from school in the rickety sedan he’d saved up for two years to buy. “About changing when you’re with Kate, of telling her?”

Derek shakes his head. They’ve been werewolves their whole lives and sometimes Derek wonders what it’s like for people who have been bitten, to have to learn everything. Control is like second nature for them. They don’t start actually changing until they hit puberty but he’s always been able to feel it, something just under the surface of his skin, just trying to get out. By the time he’d actually been capable of changing he knew how to stay calm, how to control it on instinct.

“No. It’s not hard to stay calm-“

“Even during sex?”

“I have never started to change during sex,” Derek counters, “Have you?”

Laura just gives him a cool glare.

“Right, I forgot. Miss Perfect. Clearly I can’t tell her until it gets to _that_ point but she loves me, she’ll accept it.” 

There it is. No nerves. No hesitance. Just a collected, mature, and steady werewolf. Sometimes Derek wonders if he is further developed than his peers, if the instincts add something.

Laura doesn’t speak again until they pulled up to the Hale house, already bustling with after-school activity. They can both hear the steady chatter and pounding of feet from younger siblings and cousins, plus a few parents home to curb their boundless energy. 

She climbs out of the car but leans back in through the open window.

“Just be careful, okay? Sometimes I worry about it.”

“Whatever you say, Sis.” He agrees pleasantly, “It’s your afternoon to look after the kids. Tell Mom I’ll be home for dinner.”

That weekend, as Derek very publicly makes out with Kate Argent on the dance floor at a crowded house party, he manages to find his sister’s gaze in the crowd. He pulls away just long enough to send her a self-assured smile.

 

-

 

The day it happens Derek just _knows_. Something feels wrong, right down to his bones. 

It’s late November, and it has been a rare long day at school. Nothing had gone right, from the pop quiz in English to the Advanced Chem assignment that Derek had forgotten at home. To make it worse Kate has been MIA for a few days, after hearing about a job interview out of state.

After school Derek spends three hours in the library working on a project for his government class before even making it down to the gym, to run drills and work out with Mike and Evan from the baseball team.

As they enter the weight room though, Derek started to feel it, a physical ache throughout his body and an overwhelming feeling of dread. Even though instinct says he should listen he ignores it, adds more weight to one of the benches, motions for Evan to spot for him.

He smells Laura before he sees her. That in itself isn’t unusual, what with the superior sense of smell, and the knowledge that she’s practicing for a drama performance at the other end of the school. What’s unusual is the utter panic that’s seeping out among her normally serene scent.

He sits up so fast on the weight bench that Evan jumps backwards, turning to the door just as Laura bursts through, face red and tears absolutely streaming down her face. 

“Derek,” she gasps, “Derek, there’s a fire!”

And that’s all she has to say because Derek understands the feeling now. Something is wrong with the pack. He doesn’t even pause to absorb the information before he’s up out of his seat and racing with Laura out of the room.

Coach Harris seems to be the one who had come to inform her, and now him. He’s waiting there, keys in hand, insisting on driving them to the hospital. Derek absorbs the information as they drive. There was a massive fire at their home, the home where parents, uncles and aunts, and more than half a dozen younger siblings and cousins had been preparing for a family dinner. 

As Harris goes on Derek’s dread grows. Even though there are no fewer than five exits from the first floor of their family home, and even more for werewolves with the super strength to tear through walls, something isn’t sitting right.

The emergency room is full of people rushing around, shouting and frantically panicked. It’s the same acrid smell that Derek had noticed on his sister when she’d found him at the school.

It smells like death.

“Derek.”

Laura’s voice is tight and high, so far departed from what he’s used to that it makes his him literally shake. She’s always been good at controlling her senses, focusing them to get what she wants, and Derek is nearly as good. He knows why she’s panicking, and it’s because amid all the chaos surrounding the fire victims he can’t make out any of the familiar heartbeats either. All he can smell is the choking scent of burnt flesh and dying. 

He reaches for her hand and feels sharp, claw-like nails digging back into his. 

The nurse that finally recognizes them, who comes out on the floor to meet them, she just reeks of pity. Derek’s senses are kicking into overdrive as she places a hand on his arm and guides them into the stiff, uncomfortable seats by the wall. He can feel the pain she’s in, sees the hint of a bruise poking out from under the sleeve of her scrubs. At the same time he knows she doesn’t feel it because the adrenaline coming off of her would be enough to give him a contact high if this was any other day. He hates it, how his body pulls in every little detail when he just wants to focus on one thing.

“I’ll get you word as soon as I can, as soon as we know anything.”

It’s a lie. He knows it and Laura knows it. Laura’s breath hitches beside him, but here they’re just kids and there’s nothing to do but wait. It’s an unfamiliar and unwanted feeling; they haven’t been treated like children since before they’d changed the first time.

Derek closes his eyes and tries to focus, to find one of them amidst the noise that’s echoing and amplifying because of all the stress in Derek’s system. It’s the terror as much as anything else that’s making it hard to focus.

Then he finds it, the familiar beating of the alpha’s heart.

_**Dad.** _

He lets out all of his breath in a rush, and again fumbles for his sister’s hand. She has it too, he can tell by her grip. His body becomes much calmer all at once.

It takes him a moment to realize that it’s all wrong. The sound is slow, like he’s injured. Derek keeps his focus laser-sharp on that sound, and he has to struggle to keep his composure as it changes, weakens.

And then, just like that, it stops. Derek starts, for a moment wondering if there was another noise or someone jostled him, but when he refocuses on that space it’s quiet.

Laura’s gasp beside him is so loud that he thinks she might physically be in pain. Her grip tightens around his hand and suddenly she’s sobbing. He drags her into his arms and just holds her against his chest because it’s what they both need. He can’t bring himself to try to focus again, even as his wolf senses start scanning for another familiar heartbeat, or the scent of pack.

 

-

 

It’s three hours before they hear anything, even though by that point they’ve already heard everything. Some is from whispers between nurses, and plenty more is from the heartbeats they’ve found, and those they haven’t. 

Their parents are both dead. Their siblings who range in age between nine and fourteen are all gone as well. They haven’t been able to find signs of life from anyone, and Laura is mostly disturbed by the fact that she can’t find a heartbeat for their completely human, three year old cousin Anna.

A young doctor comes over to them, accompanied by the newly elected sheriff, a man Derek recognizes from his old deputy duties of breaking up high school parties in the woods. They both have somber looks on their faces.

Laura’s still enclosed in his arms, but she tenses when they come near. Derek looks up and suddenly can’t decide if he wants to claim that he’s an adult or still just a kid.

“How bad is it?” he asks, not letting them sugar coat it.

The sheriff sighs, and actually looks pained as he starts to explain.

“They’ve just managed to get the fire out so it’s going to be a while before we have a definitive cause. What we do know is there were thirteen people in the house when it started, and it went up fast.”

“The members of your family came in with various degrees and regions of burns.” The doctor cuts in. “Unfortunately most of them were,” he stops for a moment, searching for the right word, “… severe. We did what we could to make them comfortable but…”

Derek nods numbly. He’d already known but hearing it doesn’t make it any easier, or make him feel any less like someone had punch him hard in the gut. He tightens his grip on his sister as she begins to sob again.

“Did anyone…”

“Peter Hale is in surgery,” the doctor tolls them. “He’s your…“

“Uncle.” 

“Of course. He’s in surgery. If he does make it, we’re still not certain what shape he’s going to be in, but we’ll know more in the morning.”

“The kids?”

They’d had three younger siblings in that house, cousins as young as three years old. If the fire was enough to kill the werewolves he can’t imagine the human members of their household. All he can think of is taking Charlie to Soccer on the weekends, of Amanda and Jen chasing the smaller kids around the house. He can still pick the girls up. And their parents…

“I’m sorry.”

Derek feels like he’s going to be sick. He leans forward, past Laura, his hand covering his mouth. His eyes sting and it feels like fire is running up the back of his throat. He’s got that feeling crawling under his skin, the one he always gets before he changes. It’s almost a godsend because it hits him so hard that it takes all of his energy to focus on staying as he is. Laura’s fingers curl around his knee and he can tell she’s having even more trouble with it than he is.

The adults are silent. It’s clear that neither of them is quite sure what to say to a couple of teenagers who have just lost their entire family. 

 

-

 

They’re at the hospital throughout the night. Mostly it’s because there’s really nowhere for them to go. Eventually the nurse leads them into an empty room in the long-term care wing. He forces Laura to take the bed and she falls asleep almost immediately, physically exhausted with grief. He curls himself into the uncomfortable chair by the bed and just listens.

He must fall asleep at some point because the next thing he knows Laura moving on the rickety bed sounds like gunshots.

The next few days pass in a blur. There are a lot of meetings and questions and decisions thrust upon Derek because he’s the elder of the two of them. He doesn’t know the first thing about funeral arrangements or eulogies. Nor does he know what to do about Peter. Or Laura.

Peter survived. He’s so badly burned that he’s in a nearly vegetative state. His face looks distorted and it completely throws Derek when he sees him for the first time post-surgery. Their father had been the alpha, but if anyone had been second in command it was most definitely his uncle. He’d been confident, smooth and demanding, often pushing the limits of what any beta should be able to say or do. 

Derek had seen him fall off of their porch roof once, busting his side open on a broken garden pot and snapping his arm. He hadn’t even flinched as his body healed. To see that nothing is happening – no healing, and his eyes staring back so blankly makes Derek shudder. 

Laura seems to be more in top of things than him. She chooses bible verses, writes obituaries, and continuously points Derek in the right direction with the adults that seem unsure of how to direct children in these kinds of arrangements.

The sheriff surprises Derek. Their father had never really trusted law enforcement, what with the guns, the hunters and the people who asked questions. But Sheriff Stelinski is back at the hospital the afternoon after the fire with some preliminary information. It was an electrical fire, and the arson inspectors found some extensive damage to explain why the fire traveled so quickly.

He makes himself available to them and offers help where he can. He sets up one of the police station conference rooms for them to talk with everyone while making arrangements, and lets them sleep in the oft abandoned barracks. His wife comes in with food, and clothes that somehow miraculously fit. There’s always a kid with her, maybe a few years younger than their now deceased little brother. Derek is glad that the kid tends to disappear into the depths of the offices as soon as he arrives.

The day before the memorial the sheriff comes into the conference room and closes the door. Laura is supposedly trying to get some sleep.

Derek looks up at him. He looks almost as tired as Derek feels. Carefully he sits down across the table and looks hard at Derek.

“Was there something you wanted, Sir?” Derek asks.

“You shouldn’t have to go through this,” The sheriff says, “You’re just kids and…”

Derek sits there as he trails off. It wasn’t as though the sheriff was telling him something he didn’t know.

“There is going to be a woman coming down here from child welfare.” The sheriff begins again, just as the silence is starting to get awkward. “They want to find a relative for you and your sister to stay with.”

“There isn’t anyone.” Derek replies sullenly. They’ve never spoken to his mother’s family, and his father’s entire family have died in the fire.

“I know, I asked you sister last night. She was trying to get me to help her pick out flower arrangements.” He laughs a little at the absurdity of it. “You’re eighteen, you’re legally an adult, but your sister has to go somewhere. Did you talk to the insurance company today?”

“Laura did.” 

His sister is more organized than him. She does better orchestrating, and she seems to go into autopilot as soon as there is something to be done.

“The two of you are going to be getting a sizeable settlement over the fire. It might take a while but you’re also going to be getting whatever life insurance your parents had taken out. I really think that you’re both going to need family to get through this, and if all you’ve got is each other it’s not going to do you or her any good to be separated.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Derek’s reply is short.

The sheriff seems to accept that as answer enough and excuses himself to return to his duties. Derek sits back in the chair. Laura isn’t asleep yet, and he knows she’s been listening in on every word. 

“Derek.”

She says his name in something hardly louder than a whisper.

He’s out the door before she can say anything else.

The hospital and the police station have felt like living in a prison, constant scrutiny and being watched by these adults who didn’t know them, who try to let them down easy and give them some sage advice. Derek isn’t used to the adults in his life not trusting him but he isn’t used to them being overbearing either. He just needs to get away from everyone for a while.

He can’t wolf out, which is what he wants. He knows it’s not smart and one of the first things Laura had said when they’d reached the police station a few days before was a warning that they needed to be careful.

It takes him a half an hour to reach the house. They haven’t been out there yet. It’s the one thing that no one seems willing to offer. Seeing it now, he can understand why.

The area is taped off, and the front of the house is dark with smoke damage and broken glass. As he walks around to the back he sees the real damage, the roof burned off and the missing walls. He goes inside and moves slowly through the house, surveying the damage and taking in the smells. He could tell you exactly where everyone was when it started. The damage is extensive and he can hardly imagine that this was the house he came home to every night. It’s too quiet. It’s too empty.

As he’s leaving he’s stopped suddenly by a familiar smell, just as he passes the basement windows. It smells of people and panic and a little bit of gasoline. Under all that though, it smells a little bit like Kate.

In all the craziness of the past few days Derek’s completely forgotten that she wasn’t returning his calls. He hasn’t even picked up his phone. Now he’s just confused; he’d never brought Kate here. His feet take him to her house before he’s really aware of where he’s going.

He knocks and the woman who answers the door stares at him blankly.

“Is Kate here?”

“Kate?”

“Kate Argent. Your niece?”

The woman shakes her head. “I’m sorry Sweetheart, I don’t have a niece named Kate, and I’m not related to anyone named Argent.”

Aside from being able to hear the lie, the way her heart speeds up fractionally, Derek knows this woman. He’d never brought Kate home but the two of them had spent plenty of time hiding in her room. He may not have ever met Kate’s aunt in person, but he knows her smell and her voice from pure proximity.

Still, it’s not as though he can force his way into the house. Something is going on here, something Derek is powerless to question because in this world, as he’s been painfully reminded over the past few days, he’s still just a kid.

He apologizes for his mistake; he must have gotten the address wrong. As he leaves he strains his senses for any sign of Kate. It’s there, but it’s faint. She’s long gone. The smells he notices now make him uncomfortable: gunpowder, silver, and blood. He walks faster.

His last stop is the high school, where he finds his car parked in the back of the student lot. He hasn’t spoken to any of his friends since it happened. He just turned his phone off. There are some flowers on the hood of his car, notes and a candle. He shoves them off violently and nearly puts his foot through the floor of the vehicle as he zips out of the parking lot.

“Where the hell have you been?” Laura hisses at him, meeting him in the parking lot when he returns to the police station, “That woman is here waiting for you, Derek. Do you know how bad it looks if you just disappear?”

There’s fear spiking even higher than her annoyance and anger. They haven’t been talking through this so much as communicating through body language. It’s really impossible to talk about certain things in the presence of half a dozen well-meaning but overbearing police officers, but she knows they’re at the mercy of adults just as much as he does.

“Peter is going to be in the hospital for the rest of his life, Derek. We’re all the pack that’s left. You _can’ _t abandon me.”__

Derek ducks down to look her in the eye; he stands head and shoulders above her most days.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he tells her. “Go back inside. I’ll be right there.”

He gives himself a few moments to collect himself and figure out his options. Then he pulls a few things out of the back seat of his car and brings them inside. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, finding Laura back in the conference room with a harried looking woman. “I thought I had time to go up to the school and grab my car but I had some trouble getting it started. I wanted to bring Laura this.”

It’s a sweatshirt that he hands to his sister, one they bought on a family vacation the previous summer. He’s seen himself that everything back at the house is in ruins and he knows Laura well enough to know that it’s important to her.

The things the woman wants to know are expected. How is he going to take care of his sister? Where will they live? How will they afford it?

The Hale family is well off, even without anything insurance could pay. Until the financials are figured out they can stay at Uncle Peter’s apartment in the center of town seeing as he will be unable to use it. He and Laura are both in school so they share a schedule. He’ll graduate in the spring and then he’ll find a job to make sure she gets through the next two years.

“What about college?” the woman asks him, “I spoke to your guidance councilor. She told me that you have several schools that might be offering you baseball scholarships.”

Derek lets his breath out in a long push, “Baseball really doesn’t seem all that important right now. I can wait a few years; go to college when Laura goes.” 

It sinks in as he says it that it’s true. There hasn’t been a single thought about baseball, or school, or anything but family in five days. He doesn’t care anymore. Something in him wants and needs to make this work for his sister.

Laura is staring at him, clutching her sweatshirt to her chest. Clearly she was not at all prepared for that answer either.

“That’s quite a decision for someone your age.”

“She’s my sister,” Derek growls, “She’s all I have left and I am not leaving her alone, or in the care of someone I don’t know.”

The woman asks a few more questions, informs him that they will be in touch and leaves a card so they can call once they’re settled. Derek has no intention of calling but he makes a show of putting her card into his wallet.

The woman is barely out of the room before Laura is around the table, hugging him. She doesn’t say anything, but really, she doesn’t have to. They both know.

 

-

 

It seems like the entire town shows up to the memorial. The Hales were well established in the community and between their parents, aunts, uncles and all the kids it seems like everyone knew one of them. Another huge percentage is probably there to see the results of a train wreck. Small towns are life fishbowls, and Derek hates it. Laura is just as tense as they accept every condolence and each sad expression. She’s better at forcing a smile than he is.

Thankfully the burials are private. There are a few people, neighbors who will fade out of their lives over the past few months, a few parents’ friends and two or three of the police officers who have been keeping watch over them for the past few weeks, but so many fewer prying eyes. 

The priest Laura picked out says a prayer over each of the coffins before they’re lowered into the ground. Their father is last and the small crowd thins quickly.

The sheriff is the last to leave. He’d corned Derek before the day began; made sure he knew there was a real offer if they needed help dealing with anything. He pats Derek on the shoulder and expresses his condolences to Laura one more time.

The two of them stand there for a long time just holding on to one another and staring out at the dirt being packed back in on top of the coffins. Laura is crying again, trying to stay quiet and Derek wraps an arm tightly around her shoulders.

When they make their way back to the car Laura asks him the question he’s sure she’s been holding in for days.

“Did you feel any different? After dad?”

He’s been waiting for it.

“No.”

She looks at him. “Do you think it takes time?”

“I don’t know,” Derek replies. “Maybe it went to Peter. He’s more experienced than either of us.”

“The alpha has to be strong, Derek. Peter’s vegetative. It has to…” She trails off, stress that she’s been suppressing pouring off of her. “It must take time. The full moon should trigger it.”

Derek nods. He doesn’t know what to do, other than agree with her. It had crashed down on him once Laura had fallen asleep at the hospital the night everything had happened. If Peter died there was no question he was the alpha. That was so bizarre and terrifying.

“I know you’re probably exhausted,” he tells her, fiddling with his keys, “after the last few days of everything, but if I don’t let go and run I’m going to lose it on someone.”

She lets out a watery laugh, “I thought you’d never ask.”

She is kicking off her shoes and shrugging out of her coat before he can even react. Derek peels of his own jacket before taking off after her. The change is quick and the two of them sprint freely through the woods until the stinging pain is replaced by the dull ache that running leaves in their chests. 

Even in the wolf form it isn’t the same. There’s an empty hole that can’t be filled and a feeling of being alone. He and Laura stay close together and he’s sure she’s feeling the same thing. Their home had always been filled with wolves and regular people and it being just the two of them feels more than odd.

When they make it to the house it’s easy to slip pass the tape. He’s seen it and waits and watches quietly as his sister examines each of the rooms in turn. She takes a few small items, things that belonged to their parents and siblings. Once she’s finished they descend together into the basement. There’s a lockbox with all of their family’s history in it, books and journals. The room is blocked off with a giant iron door and barred windows. They’d both been here on their first real full moon, kept from running free while they learned to control it.

The room is undamaged, and the box and keys sitting on the same table where they were left. He scoops them up easily and stares at the dark room. He isn’t sure if it bothers him that this is the only place where nothing has changed.

Laura shivers, “Let’s get out of here.”

Peter’s apartment is nearly immaculate, a sharp contrast to the ruined house. It’s organized and cold; it almost feels like no one’s ever lived there. 

They go through the cabinets together, throwing out a lot of food and figuring out what they can keep. Laura cooks and Derek takes bag after bag out to the dumpster. They eat and remake the bed in Peter’s room. 

“We have school tomorrow,” Derek says. “You should sleep.”

Laura takes the bed and Derek makes himself comfortable on the couch. The blanket he pulls down on top of himself smells like wolf. For the first time he just lets the tears spill.

 

\- 

 

He feels all eyes on him when he walks into his first class the next morning. His phone is full of voice mails that he hasn’t heard from so many of them. The only thing he’s heard is their condolences as they filed past him and Laura.

“Hey man,” Evan greets him as he takes his usual seat. “I umm…”

“Don’t.” Derek replies shortly. He can’t take it.

Everyone is clearly walking on eggshells. Three hours are more than it can take and as the halls are filled with the lunch rush he escapes to his car. 

He goes to the woods. 

He runs.

Laura doesn’t mention it when he picks her up hours later, but she looks weary from the day. The two of them have piles of schoolwork that no one ever expects them to pass in. She begins working and he shrugs on a jacket, not even saying a word before he’s gone again.

The next day he’s only there long enough to see that Laura gets inside safely. 

The day after that he doesn’t go at all.

It’s almost a month before anything comes of it. There are notices and phone calls but there is no one to enforce his attendance, to give him a stern parental talking to. Laura’s started to put things up in the apartment, their apartment. There are a few pictures she’d managed to salvage, but that just makes it hurt more. He spends as little time there as he can, preferring to let the wolf side take over.

It’s the day before the full moon when things finally come to a head.

He’s been running in a t-shirt despite the cold, flying through the wooded paths that his instinct knows better than his human self. School’s still in session so he isn’t expecting it when the blur that is a running Laura flies past him.

He skids to a stop, more surprised than anything and turns to find his sister standing in the clearing behind him, arms crossed over her chest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks. 

“Well, I have to do _something_ to get your attention,” she snaps back, frustrated.

“You should be in school,” is all he says before turning to start off again.

_“ **Don’t** ignore me, Derek.”_

The words come out in a growl and Derek’s body reacts; it’s like a full-bodied wince, ducking away from a painful lash. It’s been over two years since he’s felt that, the last time being the first time he’d come home from a party reeking of alcohol and who knew what else. Derek knew that he couldn’t get drunk, that the alcohol would metabolize too quickly, but his father was still furious, angry that he’d set that kind of example for his friends, mere humans who were far more susceptible. He’d been waiting up for him, crowded him down the basement stairs and gave him a long, particularly loud lecture with the full strength of an alpha behind it. 

It had only been the third time that brand of anger had been aimed at him but he’d tried to avoid that kind of trouble after that.

Now he feels the full strength of an alpha’s anger again. It takes him a minute to recover and when he does he spins around to find Laura behind him, fangs shrinking back but red still sparking in her eyes. After a moment it fades and she braces her arm against a sapling to keep her balance.

It all crashes down on him in the moment, like plunging into ice cold water.

“How long have you known?”

“I’ve felt,” she pauses, searching for the right word, “different since Dad’s heart stopped. I didn’t, I couldn’t be sure, and I’ve been trying to figure out how it could possibly be right. Until now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Dad’s been training you for this,” she explains, moving closer. “His plan was for you to be the alpha if anything ever happened to him. But he wanted you, he wanted all of us to be kids and have normal experiences before we had to… He didn’t expect _this_ , not so soon. You’re not ready.”

That makes him freeze up.

“And you are?”

“I’m here Derek,” she bristles at the harsh question coming from him. “I was here after school, helping the kids, training and working on the pack. You have a social life, and I mean, I know I have one too but you’re willing to go along with whatever’s happening. You might be popular but it’s because you’re smart, and you play a sport and you don’t treat people like a means to an end. You don’t demand their respect the way the alpha is supposed to. You’ve been doing nothing to make us stronger as a pack since he died. You’re just running away from the problem.”

It sinks in that she’s right. He can draw their comparison at school easily. He’s exactly what Laura says he is, while she’s revered by most of the population. If she doesn’t like what’s being done she takes over and fixes it, even once or twice at the expense of other people. She’s a leader because she’s good at it, while he has to work a lot harder.

Their father had always put an extraordinary amount of pressure on Derek, and now that she’s said it out loud he realizes it was all geared toward the goal of getting him ready. His father had yelled at him for drinking because it wasn’t protecting his other pack, his friends. His apparent soberness had put them all at risk. Now Derek sees that he was making excuses when he’d wanted to go out with his friends rather than spend time with his family. He might have needed more focus but his father had known there was time.

At least, there had been.

Derek lets out a wrecked sound as Laura reaches him. 

“None of us could have seen this coming. If it had happened ten years down the road it would have been you, no question, but-”

He clenches his hand around hers, willing her to stop talking. She takes the hint and when he looks up at her she’s looking at him like she’d give anything to rip the alpha out of her and give it to him. 

There is a long, tense silence before she speaks again.

“The pack’s gone. Omegas don’t do well by themselves, Derek.”

“I need you,” he nods. “I need an alpha.”

“I need you too,” she replies, and it’s quiet. “I don’t think that woman from social services is going to leave us alone when you get expelled just because I have alpha on my resume. I need you to be at home, and I need you to finish school. Outside of that, we need to work on making you stronger, focus more on the two of us as a pack.”

Laura already has goals. Clearly she’s been questioning and thinking about this since she realized what was going on, trying to figure out what they should do to keep themselves above water.

“I need you to let me protect you.”

It’s the only thing he can think of on such short notice, the only thing he feels it’s his place to demand as an older brother.

It seems like it must be the right thing to say though. Laura throws her arms around his shoulders, letting out a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

 

-

 

Things do get easier after that. School is still a painful mess, somewhere Derek can’t make himself want to be, but at least now he has a reason to go. Even when it’s hard Laura can seem to sense it, and reaching out to punch him in the hall is enough contact to calm him down. 

He tries with his friends, and they do seem happy to see him. It takes him a while but eventually he’s able to fake the enthusiasm. Eventually that enthusiasm becomes closer to real again. 

Laura makes the effort to see that he enjoys his senior year. She makes him go out with his friends, and drags him to parties, but when he drops out of baseball after the first two practices she doesn’t say a word. She just joins him on runs after school is out for the day, sacrificing part of her social life for him.

It takes a while to find their groove but they do manage to find some sort of balance between their alpha-beta and brother-sister relationships. She’s the head of one while he leads in the other and they each win out in certain areas. She actually listens when Derek puts his foot down on certain topics. He knows he wouldn’t be quite so allowing if he held both roles and thinks maybe that’s a leadership skill he needs to work on.

 

-

 

Other parts of life go on too. Peter is transferred into long-term care and they start to visit, on weekends, holidays. It’s really a sick sort of family, looking at them all sitting in his hospital room on Easter Sunday.

It’s too different. Peter had always been so strong and smart, not a challenge to their father only because of his lack of physical presence. Now he just stares back at them with glassy eyes, completely unmoving. It breaks Derek again each time he goes into the room. Laura won’t let him out of it, and over time some part of it fills a bit of the hole left by the deaths.

The life insurance payment comes in more quickly than they’d expect and the amount of money they’re receiving is expected, enough to live on and get them through college easily. Then Laura’s the one who picks the lawyer who promises them a fair settlement in the case of the fire.

At first he’s hesitant about the small sixteen year old girl asking him pointed questions. He tells her to let the grownups talk and Derek grunts a laugh because he certainly doesn’t look much older than his sister.

“Answer her questions,” he says flatly.

He deals with Laura without question after that.

Having money certainly makes life a little easier and they both agree on being thrifty, not making any drastic purchases, just the necessities.

Derek’s graduation is nothing special; it spills into summer and into Laura’s return to school. He’s been accepted everywhere that he applied and a few are willing to put his spot on hold. The baseball offers are gone. Instead he finds work, clearing stone at the quarry and on construction sites as it comes. They all give him funny looks, a lanky kid who hasn’t grown into his height yet, but his superhuman strength is what takes them by surprise. He starts to look a little less scrawny, adding on some definition.

They spend two painful years in Beacon Hills. Life drags in every way possible for Derek. The fishbowl is still there, with the pitying looks and the hushed whispers. With their hearing he and Laura know every detail and rumor that makes its way into circulation. 

Laura makes them work on the pack. Her role as the alpha is to make sure they’re careful, and they’re ready if some hunter comes back to finish the job. They’ve never discussed it but the underlying feeling that the fire wasn’t actually an accident is shared. If he could smell Kate there was no way Laura’s alpha senses hadn’t picked it up. She doesn’t say a word though, just puts Derek through even more rigorous pacing than their father had. He runs more than he ever has in his life and she comes up with increasingly complicated scenarios for him to find his way out of. Not all of them can be solved by brute strength and Laura’s mantra becomes something their father had said time and time again.

“We have to make sure the next generations are better at balancing out their wolf and human side than we were.”

He still rushes into it every time but he’s open to suggestion; it makes both of them better.

When Laura graduates Derek makes it more of an event than his was. He makes sure she spends the first several weekends after the ceremony out celebrating with her friends, even when she tells him they should take some time to themselves. It’s worth it to see the smile on her face when he picks her up later.

Derek’s smart, but Laura’s always been smarter. They can afford to send her pretty much anywhere but she limits herself to only the places where Derek’s going to be able to come with her. They settle on a public university at the other end of the state as much for its academic reputation as that it’s far enough away for some semblance of a fresh start. It’s close enough to get back and visit Peter if anything happens. 

They pack up two weeks before classes are scheduled to start, fitting everything they need into Derek’s car, prepared to move into a new apartment near school. They’ve put off acquiring much because Laura insists they always be able to disappear at a moment’s notice.

Their final stop on the way out of town is the cemetery. It’s surprising that they only go once a year but returning to this place in painful enough. The row of grave markers with the name Hale scrawled across them is especially haunting when noting the dates of death all match, and how young some of the deceased are. It’s been almost three years.

There’s a funeral going on a little farther down the hill. Derek can feel the grief pouring back at them in waves. Laura is placing flowers on the graves of all the kids while he kneels in front of their parents’ headstones. He traces over the letters of his father’s name as he glances downwind.

There are a lot of police officers, and when they trail off they leave behind just a few figures. Derek recognizes the sheriff and can feel the pain seeping off of him. There’s a young kid next to him, hand clutching a couple of flowers. He has to be the sheriff’s son. He doesn’t even need scent to tell him that.

There’s another kid standing a few feet away with a woman Derek recognizes from somewhere, but he can tell that they’re only there in support.

Laura’s hand on his shoulder isn’t enough to make him jump but it’s a near thing. He looks back at her and she’s watching them too.

“We’re not alone,” she tells him.

He knows what she means.

 

-

 

Starting over doesn’t hurt any less, but at least no one knows about the fire, or any of what followed. Everyone has been telling Derek that people really find themselves in college and Laura proves that point. She’s exactly who she was in high school, a little more mature and a little more ruthless, but she maintains her belief that she should fight for what she believes in.

He’s majoring in mechanical engineering; she’s double majoring in business and marketing. His major keeps him busy with lab work and complicated studying. Hers is something she’ll dominate at; he can only imagine how cutthroat she’ll be.

Part of Derek wants to reach out again, to be around people and make himself stronger with a human pack but every time he tries he thinks back to Kate and finds he can’t trust them quite enough to let them in. He goes to class, he works hard. He goes to the gym, he works harder. He lets his sister drag him out and makes himself social enough not to be considered a recluse.

He knows she notices but she still chooses not to say anything. She’s still constantly challenging him, but as they start over a new part of him accepts his place in their life, and he finds himself putting less effort into strengthening his mind.

Even with Laura growing up Derek can’t quite shake the older brother protectiveness, even when it’s a wolf thing. She’s seeing a guy in a serious way their junior year and he’s happy she at least makes an effort to be subtle and not flaunt it. He can tell, of course, but she’s not going out of her way to make a big deal out of it. However, the morning he comes out into their apartments’ living area and finds the guy sitting at the kitchen table at eight AM he can’t help that his hackles raise internally.

“Derek.”

Laura’s tone from the bathroom is a warning, even though it’s whispered.

“Hey man,” the guy says from the chair, giving Derek a wave over his coffee.

Derek nods and moves past him to where the coffeemaker is still nearly full. He has class in less than an hour and it would probably help to be awake.

“This is a nice place you and Laura have. I’ve been here a lot, surprised I haven’t seen much of you.”

“I have labs.” Derek tells him shortly.

“Still, we should get to know each other, have a guy’s night.” He stands up and comes over. “I love your sister; I want us all to be like family-”

That word makes Derek crack and before he’s aware of what’s going on he has the guy crowded up against the wall, arm across the guy’s neck and a growl working its way up the back of his throat.

_“Derek!”_

Laura is out in the kitchen now, yelling and there’s the force of an alpha behind it. It makes Derek wince but he forces out harshly, “I don’t want to see you here” before he eases up and backs away. He scoops up his coffee cup from the counter and strolls away without a word. He closes himself back in his room until the hushed whispers from Laura’s boyfriend end with the slam of the front door.

When he slinks back out to the living room he isn’t even ashamed.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” she snaps. “I _like_ him.”

“I can bear with the annoying string of boys you’ve dated but not when one of them tries to tell me he’s my _family_.” 

She crosses her arms over her chest, “What if he was?”

Derek rolls his eyes, “You can’t actually be serious. You would turn him?”

“Dad turned Mom before they were married Derek. It happens. I want a pack, I miss having a pack.”

“ _I’m_ your pack.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. You’re strong Derek and I’m trying to teach you to be a leader. Dad would have wanted you to be worthy of being an alpha.”

“I’m never going to be an alpha!”

It had been a long time since he’s actually yelled at Laura. It had only happened once or twice since everything had fallen apart and it had previously been over stupid teenager activities. Now you could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

“One day-”

“Shut up Laura. I’m not going to be the alpha because for that to happen you’d have to die.”

That does shut her up.

Derek had realized it almost a year ago. It had been a revelation he’d had in the middle of training. He’s bigger now, stronger and finally grown into his tall frame. He’s the spitting image of their father. He’s faster and smarter and so much better at controlling his wolf than he had ever been in high school, so much more focused than he had ever been for his parents. Then he realized nothing was changing. Being an alpha was almost always passed on through death, and if not it was voluntary.

It wasn’t in Laura to give away the kind of power she had, even if it was only to Derek. And for the past five years it had been Derek’s job to protect her. As her beta and her older brother he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her, even if it cost him.

“You have to be careful who you turn. You have to be sure.”

She hasn’t quite gotten her balance back yet and he can tell. She just nods.

“I have to get to class.” 

With that he moves around her and out the door. He stays away for as long as he can.

It’s the weekend before he and Laura are actually in their apartment together at the same time. She literally curls up next to him on the couch. Laura is not the most affectionate person, not with him, but she’s letting off scents that are need and comfort and love and they’re entirely wolf. 

That’s also rare. Laura is good at control.

He wraps both of his arms around her and sits quietly while she sorts out her thoughts.

“You take good care of me,” she says half an hour later, her wolf content. “Dad would be really proud of how much you’ve grown up.”

He lets out his breath slowly but doesn’t say anything. She knows how much something like that means to him.

“I broke up with Shawn.”

“Who’s Shawn?” he asks, confused.

After a moment she starts laughing. “You have to learn their names eventually, you know.” 

 

-

 

The settlement from the fire comes in the same month that they graduate. It’s a lot of money, a lot more than they were expecting. It’s a shock to suddenly be out in the real world and really not need to hunt for a way to support themselves. 

They spend the summer running through the state forest and lounging on the beach. It really is every college student’s dream but for them it feels just like the past six years. The only issue is that now they have no definite forward direction.

Laura starts going on interviews in August. She buys herself a new, professional wardrobe and nails every interview she goes on. But she’s picky. She’s looking for the right fit.

Derek is proud, but he isn’t sure what to do with himself quite yet. He’s content with the way things are and is satisfied to see what happens and do what’s needed of him.

He does settle on one thing, he makes a selfish, teen-boy fantasy come true and buy a sleek, black Camaro. Laura rolls her eyes but borrows the keys for her next interview.

When she comes home that afternoon she’s beaming. She thinks she’s found it, the right one. There’s a second interview two days later and early the next week a third.

Derek spends the day in the woods and when he gets home that night he searches her out.

He sticks his head into her room to ask when she’s going to be starting her new job and freezes when he sees the suitcase open and half packed on her bed. 

“Are you going somewhere?”

Laura backs out of her closet. She’s pulling out jeans and t-shirts, not any of her new suits. Even without his senses Derek can tell there’s stress pouring off of her in waves. It’s all in her shoulders and her shallow breathing.

“I’m going back to Beacon Hills.”

That throws him completely.

“Why?”

“I…” and she pauses for a long time, searching for the right explanation. “This is something I need to do Derek.”

“What about your job?”

“I turned them down. There will be other jobs, but right now I need to do this.”

Derek is frozen in the doorway. A lump is settling in his chest at the idea of going back to the town where everything happened. Putting off his escape had been completely for Lara and if he has it his way he’d never go back.

Laura knows that without him having to say a word.

“ _I_ need to do this Derek. I’m a big girl. You don’t need to come with me.”

He can’t help the way his shoulders slump a little in relief, but he still asks, “Are you sure?”

She hugs him tightly and nods against his shoulder. 

The next morning she’s gone in a rental car before the city gets busy with workday traffic.

Derek has no doubt of Laura’s ability to take care of herself; she is an alpha after all. It’s strange and uncomfortable to be without her. They haven’t been this far apart since before the fire. Even if they didn’t see each other during the day they’re occupying the same space. She calls more than regularly, probably feeling the same internal pull that he is. She’s staying in a motel at the edge of town and spending her days out by the old house. 

She won’t tell him any more than that. It’s frustrating, but he doesn’t push. He keeps busy, lets Laura have her time to herself. He spends the days alone, letting the wolf take over or running normal human errands as they suit him, and tries his hardest not to think about what could be happening in Beacon Hills.

He can’t help the feeling of dread that settles over him like a fog.

It’s nearly September when Laura calls him with a complete change of mood. He’s been feeling it all day and when she calls he answers with, “what’s wrong?”

“I need you here,” she tells him. “I promise, Derek, I wouldn’t ask if I could handle this on my own. There is something going on here and I need both of us.”

“What do you mean by something?”  
“Things have been happening. It doesn’t feel right. The wolf knows something is wrong.”

Derek looks around their apartment like he’s never going to lay eyes on it again. He listens to the thud of his heart as his entire body tenses. 

“Do you remember the bad feeling you got about Kate?”

Her voice shocks him back to reality. It’s been unspoken since they went back to the house after the funeral that she had been there, that she had been somehow involved. Laura had never said a word about it but he was sure now that she knew about the gnawing feeling he’d been fighting for the week leading up to the fire, the one when Kate had nearly disappeared behind a curtain of excuses.

“Get everything in order tomorrow and come down on Monday.”

“I’ll be there.” He doesn’t even hesitate.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you.”

He echoes it back before hanging up. 

That night he wakes up suddenly. He’s not sure why but it doesn’t feel right in that way that scares him. The next morning he makes quick work of calling their landlord, informing him that they’ll be out of town for a while. He packs light and hunts down everything important that they’ve stashed away. Even though Laura gave him some leeway he wants to be there sooner rather than later.

The highways are jammed and he knew they would be, but that doesn’t stop him from cursing. 

There’s a key to Laura’s room waiting for him at the motel outside town, though the room looks like it hasn’t been slept in recently. Her scent is old and it makes him entirely uncomfortable. 

He spends the night sitting in one of the rough chairs just waiting for her to walk through the door. When he wakes up to the sun streaming in through the window and the aching feeling in his chest has only grown stronger.

He goes out to the house with the expectation of it being full of scents, of it having turned into the place teenagers in Beacon Hills sneak off to in order to party to peace. It doesn’t. It smells empty save for the faint scent of Laura. Maybe it’s the knowledge of what happened here, of all the people who died, that’s keeping them away.

He calls her over and over. Each time her phone goes to voicemail.

He runs in the woods, through their old trails and everywhere he goes the scent of Laura is there, but it’s faint. He spends half the day running their familiar routes and it’s not until he’s back near the house that he catches something unfamiliar but unmistakably canine.

He follows, away from the house in another direction. He’s moving in towards town and the smell is only getting stronger. There’s an inhaler half buried in the leaves. There’s a strange smell on it, and it’s been used recently so he picks it up and shoves it into his pocket. 

He follows the smell of the canine and it’s getting clearer. When he hits the clearing he stops. There are suddenly several smells assaulting him in a confusing jumble. The unfamiliar canine is now most certainly wolf, but it’s strange and then it disappears. There’s the smell of Laura too, and of another wolf, stronger, and a pup.

There’s blood on the leaves. It only holds one scent. Now Derek knows without a doubt what the feeling that’s been gnawing on him for two days is. It’s emptiness. He’s been feeling it for six years and he’s so used to it that it was hard to recognize. He falls down to his knees. It’s Laura. This other wolf, somehow he’d caught her by surprise. He’d killed her. Derek is only able to hold in his howl or rage and mourning because of the years of practice that his sister has forced on him. 

It hurts to breathe.

He’s not sure how long he’s there for, but what startles him out of it is the sound of people nearby. He looks off in the direction that the noise is coming from and when he focuses he immediately recognizes the scent from the inhaler in his pocket.

He starts off in that direction and when they come into sight it’s clear they’re just fooling around. They’re teenagers and that shouldn’t bother him, but the fact that these two are so careless when he’s just lost the last person in his life who knows anything about him makes him absolutely furious.

He stands there and watches until one of them notices him. He hits his friend and they both stand there frozen.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, stalking toward them, “This is private property.”

The one who notices him stammers out an answer, “Uh, sorry man, we didn’t know.”

“Yeah, we were just…” his friend trails off, looking at Derek closely, “looking for something but…”

Derek raises an eyebrow when he trails off again. He’s getting a very specific scent off of this one.

“Forget it,” he says dismissively.

Derek doesn’t say a word, just pulls the inhaler out of his pocket and tosses it at him. It’s a test. He stands there staring long enough to see the kid’s reflexes and instincts take over. No one should have been able to make that catch so easily. Now he knows for sure. He’s been turned. It must be a recent development since nothing about his demeanor changed when Derek had approached him.

He’s starting to get an idea of what happened. This other wolf killed his sister. He killed Laura and then he bit someone. He bit this kid. 

As he walks away he overhears the friend spouting off about exactly who he is, about the fire and about what happened to Derek’s entire family. He doesn’t know the half of it.

Derek knows then that he’s going to see these kids again. He’s going to need them to figure out who did this. He needs a plan, but after that he’s going to find out what happened to Laura and he’s going to make sure no one can hurt his family ever again.

His first step needs to be to go see Peter, to make sure he’s safe.

He’s all Derek has left.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve discovered since I started writing this that most people write Laura as the older sibling but something about Derek has just struck me since season one as an older brother. This is how it all works out in my head. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
